The Aftermath
by EnglandBabe1997
Summary: The team eat shawarma and learn a bit more about Tony Stark. Much of which doesn't really fit in with their picture - after all Steve thinks that Tony is just an arrogant billionaire, right?
1. Chapter 1

The team had gone back to Stark Tower after the shawarma. Steve and Bruce took the chance to admire the architecture - they hadn't really had the chance to before, being too busy killing creatures from outer space and irritating certain Gods of Mischief.

"Arc reactor, JARVIS," Tony said as he strode into the penthouse.

"Arc reactor functioning at 43%, Sir."

Steve and Thor both jumped wildly at the voice. Bruce looked impressed and Clint automatically went towards his bow, even jumpier than usual due to his recent experience with mind control. Natasha just looked indifferent.

"Scan for any problems."

"Scan commencing, Sir."

"Electronic butler. Nice." Bruce directed the first statement at Steve and Thor who looked disturbed.

"No problems detected Sir."

Thor and Steve looked slight more reassured by Bruce's brief explanation. Clint still looked wary - again an understandable side effect of his recent experience with mind control and also his history as an assassin, despite Natasha's nonchalance.

"Natashalie? Show them round?"

"Natashalie?" Steve was curious. Bruce, however, was also curious but (during the short time in the lab) was also beginning to learn not to voice his curiosity around Tony - it would likely lead to more confusion or an inappropriate response.

"Nickname from when she worked for me."

"She worked for you?" The incredulous tone in Steve's voice was probably intended to be mildly insulting.

"Yes," Tony said as he strode from the room.

Natasha spoke this time. "I was undercover for SHIELD, going by the name of Natalie Rushman."

"When?"

"When Pepper became CEO."

Clint nodded. "When Tony was dying." Natasha nodded in response.

Bruce started. _This_he wanted to know. "Tony was dying?"

"Palladium poisoning. About a year ago."

"What was causing the palladium poisoning?"

Steve muttered, "What's palladium?" under his breath.

Natasha answered, "Palladium is an element. In this case it was powering the arc reactor."

Bruce nodded understandingly. "So Tony couldn't survive on the palladium reactor and couldn't just take it out."

"Why not?"

"Steve, you did actually read the file didn't you?"

"Most of it."

"Did you read about Afghanistan?"

Steve nodded. There was a moment of silence.

"You got it on the tablet, didn't you?" Natasha deadpanned.

Steve nodded, not yet getting it.

"You do realise that Tony Stark is a technological genius, don't you?" Clint asked.

Comprehension suddenly cleared the confusion. "He hacked his own file?"

"He hacks everyone's files." Natasha could believe almost anything when it came to Tony Stark.

Bruce continued, "Anyway, he can't take the reactor out because he has shrapnel in his body too close to his heart to remove, from Afghanistan."

Natasha answered the original line of questioning. "I worked as his PA to infiltrate the company and then revealed that I worked for SHIELD. SHIELD then gave him some help with finding a new element because none of the currently existing ones were viable."

"Tony created a new element?" Bruce was impressed. Again. Perhaps this would become a regular occurrence? Not that he minded - anything was better than the constant rage.

"Basically. I think there was a bit of help from Howard Stark, though."

Steve's ears pricked up at that. "Howard?"

"Yes, he was involved. But I wouldn't mention Howard around Stark. As far as I can tell from the files, Howard wasn't the best father and Tony hates him. You've already not gotten off to a great start." Natasha couldn't really care less about that, but Fury was going to expect them to work as a team from now on and if they were too busy fighting someone would get killed. That wasn't exactly in any of their best interests.

"Howard was a good man."

"And a rubbish father. Don't mention him to Stark," Natasha repeated sharply.

Bruce decided to bring the conversation back to the original topic. They seemed to get sidetracked a lot. That wouldn't be good if the world was ending. "So he created a new element to power the arc reactor?"

"Yes. But when he was dying I was undercover as his PA, SHIELD had worked out a way to slow down his death. I stabbed him in the back of the next with lithium dioxide. Hence why he doesn't trust me most of the time."

"He apparently trusts you with the tower."

Natasha waved a hand carelessly. "He'll trust anyone with his houses. Former playboy who invites anything with legs home and into his bed. Stark parties, the Malibu incident."

Clint winced.

"What happened?" Thor asked stopping his curious looking around and inspection of a statue situated on a small glass table.

"Tony and a friend of his completely destroyed his Malibu mansion."

Stark had a mansion? The idea was bizarre to Steve who had grown up in the Great Depression. Then again, Howard had always had any awful lot of money and it seemed like Tony had even more - just look at the tower.

They'd walked into a lift and waited for a minute in the ensuing silence as the lift ascended. It only took another minute until the metal doors slid open after the lift glided soundlessly to a halt. Natasha waved an arm at the room. "This is the penthouse."

Clint whistled lowly. "Stark may need to redecorate."

There was smashed furniture everywhere and glass covered the floor from the broken window. The curtains fluttered in the wind, billowing into the lounge. Loki had left his own mark on the room. In particular, the floor. Remarkably, the bar seemed relatively untouched. Then again, it was Tony Stark. He was probably more likely to protect his alcohol than himself.

"Is it bad that this is nothing compared to the Malibu incident?" The five walked further into the penthouse.

Steve asked disbelievingly, "Why is there a man-shaped indent on the floor?"

Bruce replied sheepishly, "The Other Guy may have gotten a little bit irritated with Loki."

Clint laughed, loud and harsh. "You smashed Loki into the floor?"

Bruce nodded.

"Good."

Thor only looked mildly upset.

Tony took that moment to stride out from a previously closed door and stopped in surprise. "Didn't think you'd be done with the tour that quick, Natashalie."

"We weren't. They can get the tour later."

"You seem so sure they'll be around for that."

"We both read SHIELD's files," Natasha deadpanned. "They're going to be around for it. And probably living here."

Tony smirked. "I heard."

"You mean read," Clint said, edging closer to the broken window. "What happened here?"

"Loki threw me out of the window."

"Loki threw you out of the window?"

Tony shrugged.

"Loki threw you out of the _window_!"

The shout came from outside and Clint tensed up automatically, Steve and Thor reaching for their weapons, Bruce also freezing.

Natasha and Tony however didn't move. In fact, Tony seemed to relax further. "Relax, Peps. I had the suit."

A woman with red-blonde hair stormed into the room, heels clacking. "Was it on you when you were thrown out of your own window?"

Tiny bit his lip. "No?" The answer was more of a question.

'Peps' gave Tony a harsh glare, staring him down.

"Miss Potts has arrived," JARVIS suddenly announced from the ceiling.

"You're a bit behind on that, J."

There was no reply.

In fact, the room was deathly silent, watching the fuming red-head stare down the billionaire. Suddenly, he burst into speech. "Come on Pepper, what was I meant to do?"

"Let someone else take care of the nuke?"

He edged towards her slowly. "Peps, there wasn't anyone else to do it. I had to."

"No you didn't!" The red head looked ready to burst into tears - and it looked like she already had.

"Yes I did. And I'd do it again. For you." He wrapped her up in his arms.

The long silence was broken by Clint nudging Natasha and whispering, "Is Stark being romantic?"

"What constitutes being romantic to him, yes."

"Because nothing says I love you like flying a nuclear missile into another dimension."

Pepper, realising they weren't alone in the room, pulled away from the embrace flushing a light red that clashed horribly with her hair. "And who is this?"

"Clint Barton," he said holding out his hand.

"Pepper Potts."

They shook hands and then when she turned to Steve and stuck out her hand to shake, he took it gently and kissed it. "Captain Steve Rogers, ma'am," he said charmingly.

"Oi, spangles, back off," Tony scowled wrapping an arm around Pepper's waist.

"Bruce, meet the love of my life, the lovely Miss Pepper Potts." He pressed a kiss to her temple. She threw him a hard look out of the corner of her eye and then smiled at the other scientist.

"Lovely to meet you Miss Potts."

"Please, call me Pepper."

Thor bounded forwards then, like an abandoned puppy. "It is lovely to meet you Lady Pepper. I am Thor Odinson of Asgard." Pepper grinned at him.

Tony turned her around. "And you already know..."

"Natasha!"

Natasha smiled at the other red-head breaking the stoic mask for once. "How are you Pepper?"

"Better when he's not pulling stunts like these." She jerked a thumb at the inventor. "You? How was that mission in Turkey?" Everyone but Tony looked at her. "Not that I know anything about that." She turned away to avoid eye contact and choked as she took in the scenery for the first time. "Tony, _what_ happened?"

"There may have been a short fight between a giant green rage monster and a Norse God?"

Pepper blinked.

"But on the upside you can take this opportunity to rebuild your baby."

"I'm not like you Tony. I don't start the rebuilding immediately after finishing the last one," Pepper said dryly. "Or breaking it."

"I don't break my toys! And I don't rebuild. I ... improve?"

"Well we can improve this by letting me have more than twelve percent."

"I told you, you could make an argument for fifteen."

"Fifty?"

"No."

"Forty?"

"Mmm. Maybe. But the bar is part of mine."

"Have it. And the couch."

Tony pouted. Still bantering, the pair wandered off to inspect the damage to their home.

"Stark has a girlfriend?" Clint couldn't believe it. Neither could Steve.

"Yeah."

"She puts up with him?"

"She worked with him for eleven years before they got together. I think she's seen just about everything he's capable of."

"She stuck around for eleven years?"

Natasha nodded.

"She must have the patience of a saint."

"Believe me, she does."

Without another word, Natasha sashayed out after Tony and Pepper.

**I've had this in my head since I first watched the Avengers in the cinema :) I wasn't sure about the ending - I've had this on my computer/written for a while but I couldn't think of how to end it xx I think I'll leave it here and if enought people like it, write a short second chapter xx Please read and review and tell me what you think xx**


	2. Chapter 2

**I decided to write a second chapter for this! Hope you enjoy it xxx**

The team spent that night in the tower, untroubled - for the moment - by Fury and SHIELD. If Clint didn't actually sleep and Natasha never let go of her guns and Tony almost slept on the couch (only saved by Pepper's need to have him with her, as reassurance he was still alive) then none of them knew that. Yet.

Maybe later they would be able to guess.

But for now they weren't a team - not yet. Now they were a group of damaged people fighting for the same goal in memory of the same man. That didn't mean they had to like each other or get along or even tolerate each other. Sometimes Natasha was sure that the longer she spent in Stark's presence the more she wanted to kill him.

This wasn't a team.

As Bruce said - this was a time bomb.

They were learning. Tony, perhaps the most difficult of the group to figure out, despite his projected transparency, had been softened by the presence of Pepper Potts. Around her he was gentler, cared more for others' feelings. He was still quick-witted and sharp tongued, but Pepper threw barbs back like confetti at a wedding, and these taunts were neither cruel nor harsh - not like the comments made on the helicarrier.

Steve needed to apologise for that. He didn't know where to start - Tony had flown that nuke into the portal knowing there was every chance he might not come back. Steve, even with how little he knew Tony, couldn't decide if he had been selfish or selfless doing it.

He walked into the kitchen the next morning that thought in mind. Today he'd allowed himself a lie in - and decided to forgo his usual morning jog. Not that he'd manage to get too far - the city was a complete mess from yesterday's attempted invasion. When he walked in, Natasha was seated at the table, looking tense, with her back pressed against the wall. She was drinking deeply from a mug of coffee.

"Morning."

He received a perfectly polite smile in response.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Fine." If the bags beneath her eyes hadn't betrayed her, he would've thought she was telling the truth. "You?"

"It was definitely comfortable." Far too comfortable, for a guy that had grown up in the Great Depression.

"That's one thing you can't fault Stark on."

"Have you known him long?"

"Almost a year."

"When did you meet him?"

"Fury sent me in as a shadow back when he was dying of palladium poisoning."

Steve wasn't quite sure what to say to that.

The two sat in silence for a few more minutes, Steve looking around the kitchen curiously, visibly restraining himself from poking around the kitchen appliances. The door swung open with a loud bang and Steve jumped. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Natasha edge towards her knives.

"Good morning!"

Nothing seemed to faze Thor - not even the capture of his insane adopted brother. Steve relaxed, but Natasha remained leaning over the table. It was only seconds later that Bruce entered the kitchen.

"Where is the Man of Iron?"

"Still in bed. Probably for a while."

"And the Eye of Hawk?"

"Is already down here."

Everyone bar Natasha jumped. They turned to find Clint perched on top of the fridge, as though he had spent the night there. Bruce was breathing deeply in an attempt to calm his heart rate.

Tony walked in then, in contradiction to Natasha's previous words, and gave a slight puzzled look at the expressions of shock and fright on some of their faces. Natasha of course gave away nothing.

"Okay..."

"Where's Pepper?"

"Still in bed."

Natasha gave him an inquiring look.

"She doesn't have a lie in very often. Right now she deserves it."

Tony joined them at the table, sinking into a chair, and wincing when he pressed too hard on a bruise. "Dummy, coffee!"

A robot whirled over holding a steaming mug in its claw. Steve watched with curiosity and amazement - it might not be the most surprising thing he'd seen in recent days, but it was still pretty interesting.

Tony eyed Steve's look of admiration and decided for once to give a straight answer and, even more rarely, one that wasn't sarcastic. "It's a helper bot I created a while back."

The room fell back into silence - this one more comfortable. They weren't a team yet, but they knew how to fight as one. And one day they might be able to trust each other properly – well as properly as trained assassins could trust _anyone_.

They were all sat on a flat surface (Tony would say all on chairs around the table, but Clint refused to move from his perch on the fridge) when the door banged open again. This time it was Pepper, who flushed as the attention of the room turned towards her. She took a seat next to Tony and pulled out her phone, beginning to text.

"I'm taking today off. I can't handle this."She said this without looking up from her phone, the blush fading slightly.

"I don't blame you. I don't expect many people to actually be working today."

JARVIS's voice rang out, startling Steve, Clint, Thor and Bruce who were not yet used to voices proclaiming things from the ceiling. "Sir, Colonel Rhodes is entering the lobby."

Both Tony and Pepper stiffened. "You did remember to phone him last night, didn't you?"

Tony shrugged sheepishly.

Pepper buried her face in her hands. "He's not going to be happy."

Tony nodded with a grimace.

"Excuse me, who's Colonel Rhodes?" Steve asked, looking confused.

"Tony's best friend. Who quite likely thinks he's dead."

"I'm going down to my workshop." Tony attempted to escape, but Pepper caught his elbow and held fast. He slumped back into his seat, hiding.

The elevator pinged.

"Tony? Pepper? Tony!"

"In the kitchen!" Pepper called.

"No, no, no." Tony dove under the table as the door opened yet again. Rhodey took one look at Pepper's distinctly tear-free face before bellowing, "Tony!"

"Yes honey muffin?" Came the muffled voice from beneath the table.

'Honey muffin?' Clint mouthed to Natasha. She just shook her head.

"Stop hiding. Get out from under the table."

Tony wriggled out and made a break for the door. Pepper made for his wrist again but missed. However, Tony's exit was blocked by Rhodey. He closed his eyes.

And then opened one in disbelief when he received a crushing hug.

"What on Earth did you think you were doing?"

"Running?"

"I meant with the nuke!" _This_ time he received a slap to the head.

"Saving the planet."

"Saving the planet," Rhodey repeated dryly.

"Uh-huh."

"Why?"

Tony scoffed. "Because otherwise we'd all be dead?"

"Why _you_?"

"Because I'm awesome and amazing?"

He received two sharp looks in return and a variety of incredulous snorts.

"Hey! No comments from the peanut gallery."

"Comments? I didn't hear anyone say anything." Clint smirked.

Tony scowled.

Rhodey continued, "So why did you _really_ take the nuke into space?"

Steve could honestly say he hadn't yet considered that particular question.

"I was the only one who could do it."

"Were you?_ Really_?" The two exchanged an entirely silent conversation in meaningful looks, only fully understood by the pair and Pepper.

Rhodey cocked his head, an almost incline in agreement to whatever had been said in the silent discussion. Both turned to face the others, almost simultaneously, Tony unconsciously reaching for Pepper again. "Anyway, so when are you leaving?"

"We all know that Fury wants us the stay here."

"So that's it. You never leave the tower again? Jeez what's the point of having a response team if they can't respond to anything further than their front door?"

"I shall return to Asgard later with my brother."

Clint stiffened at the mention of Loki. Natasha's face hardened further - if that were even possible. Thor seemed oblivious to the tension he had caused as he walked out of the room, talking loudly to JARVIS. Rhodey sat in the chair Thor had vacated, continuing his and Tony's non-verbal conversation through a series of hand gestures and facial expressions. Steve watched in fascination.

Tony was a completely annoying idiot (for a genius). How did he manage to keep both Pepper and Rhodey?

Maybe he'd have to stick around. Just to find out.


	3. Chapter 3

**I hadn't planned on continuing this, but I've had so many reviews I think I will x I'm sorry about the wait though - I've been crazy busy :) I think this will end up as the team discovering various little things about Tony Stark and their reactions to it, so the style might change from chapter to chapter x I'm sorry if it's al little bit disjointed, I'm trying to get back into the flow of writing again :) Please read and review to tell me what you think xx**

Over the next few weeks and months the six of them started to bond as a team, staying in (as both Tony and Natasha had predicted) the newly renovated Stark Tower. They did not always get on - far from that - but they were starting to smooth down the rough edges and become something of a proper team.

Pepper was designated team mum, taking care of them when they got back from missions and stocking the kitchens when JARVIS warned her they were getting low on poptarts. She had never asked for her job, but enjoyed it anyway.

Besides, Steve complained far less than Tony.

They had started to become real friends, looking out for each other, trusting each other. They had voluntarily started to tell each other things, even if most of it was already know in their files.

In fact, Tony was the most mysterious of them all, due to the lack of things in his file and the way that he refused to talk about his personal life - it was up to Pepper and Natasha to talk then. But, other than that, team bonds were starting to be built, all of them growing closer. Steve tried to keep an eye on injuries and force medical treatment at the end of battles, but Tony and Natasha usually managed to get away. Clint managed as long as he stated out of Natasha's sight.

The difference was that Natasha knew when she had to seek medical help, Tony just refused to see a doctor in all circumstances, something which led to these kind of situations.

The kind of situations where Tony passed out unconscious on the floor of his workshop from blood loss and had to be carried out by Thor because the paramedics didn't have the security clearance high enough to even enter the floor.

He is rushed into hospital and put on oxygen but he wakes up halfway through and starts thrashing, squirming around on the table like he can't help himself. They quickly sedate him again and ask Steve's permission to restrain him, as Pepper is still on the way after being called from a board meeting, and Steve, knowing the possibility of Tony injuring himself (or making a break for it as soon as possible) is high, lets them.

The blankets over the top makes it look like he's not restrained at all.

* * *

None of the other Avengers seem to know about the restraints, though Natasha seems to have guessed, but knowing how hard it is to get Clint to stop long enough to heal she doesn't protest, even as she looks slightly worried. But she doesn't do anything about it, so Steve brushes it off.

It's for Tony's own good.

But Steve could never have guessed Tony's reaction, the frantic squirming and screaming as he started to come to his senses. The Captain had been the only one in the room, the other's forced out by the nurses to get food and semi-decent sleep, and he'd had to call the nurse for Tony to be sedated.

Chills rose in his heart, though he didn't know why.

* * *

The second time it happened the rest of the team were in the hospital room with him. Tony started to writhe and at first Bruce looked perplexed at his inability to move but Tony's twisting shifted a blanket out of place, revealing the ties holding him down. Bruce's eyes flashed green, something worse than anger in them, something like horror.

"I'm sorry," Steve stammered, feeling the innate urge to explain himself. "He was going to hurt himself."

And Bruce, who knew Tony better than anyone else in the room, looked at him like he was the monster. "Didn't you think the restraints were _why_ he was hurting?" He spat out.

Bruce looked down and then untied them, as gently as possible, and soothed one of Tony's wrist with one hand, using the other to clutch his own arm so tightly his fingers left bruises behind.

* * *

Steve didn't know what he was supposed to do. Nothing in Tony's past would account for that, though it's clear that he doesn't know the story yet.

But what he imagined horrified him enough.

Tony needed to talk.

(No matter how impossible that idea seemed.)

* * *

It was very impossible. Tony could shut up tighter than a clam when he wanted to and he'd long ago perfected the art of saying things without saying anything at all.  
Unfortunately for him, the team was good at that so Tony wasn't going to get away with it for long. Not if Natasha got Pepper involved.

When he woke up he was terrified, trashing in the bed and only seeming calm by the fact that he could move. When one of the nurses had seen the distressed nature he was in and had attempted to sedate him, Natasha had threatened her with bodily harm.

As they told him what had happened Tony looked up at Steve, betrayed.

None of them could say why.

"You let them tie me down?" Tony asked, in a voice smaller than any of them had heard from him before.

Steve nodded mutely, his gaze caught by the mixture of terrified emotions in Tony's eyes. He watched as the other man visibly put up his walls before turning away to face the blankets.

Tony didn't ask them to get out but they all knew he wanted to.

* * *

He spent the rest of the time in the hospital feigning sleep when any of them (except Bruce) came to visit. Natasha had a look on her face after a few days that told Steve that she had suspected what was wrong with Tony, even if he knew she wouldn't voice them to the rest of the team. Bruce, from his first reaction, seemed to harbour some suspicions of his own but none of them were based in facts.

Steve knew that he needed to find out what had gone wrong, both as team leader and as a friend.

It seemed that there was always something new to learn about Tony Stark.

He had to say that most of the time he didn't appreciate it.

It led to situations like this.

* * *

Tony's attempt of avoidance had managed to last four days before Bruce finally managed to sweet talk and persuade JARVIS (using only small amounts of hacking) into letting them into the workshop. The dark circles under Tony's eyes and clutter over the benches were clear indicators that the inventor had not been sleeping and Bruce peered at him concerned.

"We need to talk," Steve announced, as gently as he could.

Tony turned his head, ignoring their presence.

"Tony..."

Tony moved his head again, this time to look at them, and his eyes were hard as flint.

"You let them tie me down."

Steve just stared at him, confused.

Tony shook his head minutely. "You really don't know anything, do you?"

Steve tried not to look affronted.

Tony raised an eyebrow, his eyes only slightly shinier than normal. "When they did this," he gestured at his chest and the arc reactor glowing within in, "do you think I had painkillers? Did you think they put me under? They didn't. They tied me down and cut a hole in my chest." Tony's voice died off at the end.

Bile rose in Steve's throat.

"They held me down and cut me open. And I couldn't do anything to stop them. And you, you let them tie me down."

Steve wanted to protest, but in Tony's mind the two occasions were on equal standing - there was no distinction. Steve had betrayed him.

Bruce leaned forwards, to grip Tony's arm, but the impending threat of contact seemed to jolt Tony into reminding him where he was. He straightened, his eyes hardening.

"Now, get out of my workshop."

They did.

* * *

What Tony had said in the workshop slowly leaked out to the others, who expressed sympathy but not shock for Tony's ordeal. They all tried to apologise for the incident in their own way - Steve gave the puppy dog look and Natasha brought down extra cups of coffee (with tequila in) and Clint didn't tease him about his freak out.

Tony never expressly forgave them but he showed it by sending sketches Hulk proof trousers and designed for shield improvements and new arrow designs (these could spurt acid).

They never tied him down again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry that this took longer than I thought x I thought this was originally going to be Natasha centric but it kind of ended up being based on everyone else but her x I have a feeling I'll do another chapter on Natasha's back story later on down the line, after she's a bit more open about other things x Please read and review to tell me what you think and if there's anything in particular you want to see, though I have some ideas already x :)**

Tony supposed that for however well his new teammates are starting to know him, he still knew almost nothing about them. He's not good at making friends and knows next to nothing about the practice but he supposed that's alright because pretty much everyone else was just as clueless. You could tell Thor that to make friends on Midgard you had to buy them three chickens and an elephant and the other man would believe you.

And Natasha and Clint were about as far from sociable as you could imagine. Natasha hardly ever seemed to let down her mask, even with Clint, and it was obvious to see how well the two of them knew each other.

But still he's got to start somewhere and he starts small, asking little things that he doubts anyone but Natasha notices. Things like favourite colours and favourite meals and makes sure that JARVIS always has the Wizard of Oz available for Steve and calming music for Bruce.

Then, because it was Tony, he started with the bigger things. Tony Stark didn't really do subtlety or tact.

So he starts digging, into childhoods, because there's no real easier way to bond (and they all already suspect things about his own childhood, so what's wrong with it?)

By the end he really wishes he hadn't. He'd found evidence of Bruce's abusive childhood and an alcoholic absentee father that much echoed Tony's own. And he doesn't pity Bruce, but empathizes because he knows exactly what it feels like to be that child. But he finds happy photos mixed in with the bad, the kind of things that comfort him because it means that not everything went wrong for Bruce Banner. It means that Bruce had a Jarvis of his own (the person, not the AI), someone to kiss sore knees and wipe away tears when reality got too much.

He finds photos from Steve's childhood, rare and of a not particularly good quality, and he smiles at the sight of the scrawny boy in the photos, almost never seen without a grin, despite how ill he looks in some of them. Sometimes there is a fading bruise stretched across a cheek or an arm and Tony can only imagine the fight that Steve had tried to win in which he had received it. There is one particularly adorable one of Steve, one from Howard's collection - though how he got this Tony doesn't know - signed, dated and labelled with Steve Rogers and James Barnes. He and the Captain still do not get on perfectly - there are too many unresolved issues (such as tying him down, for his 'own good') and Howard in the way - but he doesn't begrudge the older-younger man his happiness.

There are a few more, from after he'd been finally accepted into the army, looking far more like the man that Tony knew, sometimes accompanied by Howard or Bucky or another member of the Howling Commando's and even, on occasion, he recognises Peggy.

Thor is next, obviously with none from his childhood, but Tony manages to find some from not that long ago, back when he'd first arrived on Earth. He is most often with two brunettes or an older greying man that Tony recognises as Jane Foster, Darcy Lewis and Eric Selvig. They look happy in almost all of the photos and from what Tony can deduce of Thor's childhood it had been happy.

It's slightly worrying that of all of them so far the God from outer space is the one with the best childhood.

After Thor it's Clint. He has to dig deep into that and carefully, because SHIELD had managed to hide files on Clint Barton well. In fact it would almost be difficult to get them if he were any one but Tony Stark. He _invented_ these firewalls. They aren't going to stop him (something which SHIELD would've already figured out if they had any common sense. And they wonder why he doesn't completely trust them, if he can hack into their files as easily as this).

Clint's reads like a story book, a tale of unwitting car crashes, abusive foster homes and a daring escape to the circus. There are stories of stealing and stabbings and betrayals but Tony manages to find a few photos of Clint and Barney before everything had gone wrong, some of them with their parents and there is even a single shot of a Clint who can barely be more than thirteen laughing with a tiny tiger cub. He almost hopes that some of the scars on Clint's body were inflicted by that tiny playful thing than anything else but he knows that it's unlikely.

What scares him the most is that he cannot find anything at all from Natasha's childhood, not even from hacking all of her files. He suspects that even SHIELD does not have much information of what she did before she joined them, even if they caught on to her eventually. Tony is sure that even those small morsels of information are paper copies only to prevent this exact occurrence from happening and even then most likely heavily blacked out.

* * *

Natasha finds out what he's been doing soon enough, not that it's really hard to guess - Tony's probing questions followed by someone with enough skill to hack her file, no it doesn't take a genius of Tony's calibre to work that out.

She yells at him for attempting to invade her privacy in front of the others and everyone gets very upset and shouts over Tony's explanations and Tony has to fend off Natasha and Clint's attempts of bodily harm until JARVIS gets them all to shut up. It's then that Tony shows them what he's found (only the good pictures of course) and all of them get a bit emotional because no one's an idiot and they all know that this means Tony knows other things about them, the kind of things that they never wanted other people to know.

And then everyone starts acting very out of character and spilling their secret heartaches and no matter how much it disconcerts Tony he's kind of glad to be part of a team. Maybe it's not so difficult to make friends after all.

But no one forgets how, despite how loose-lipped everyone else becomes, Natasha doesn't say a word. Surprisingly they're all okay with that.

She'll open up to them sooner or later.


End file.
